TURKEY URGES GOVERNMENT TO ENTER DIALOGUE
Russia and Jordan urged their nationals to leave Syria.
After years locked behind frozen front lines, rebel forces have burst out of their northwestern Idlib bastion to achieve the swiftest battlefield advance by either side since a street uprising against Assad mushroomed into civil war 13 years ago.
Syria’s conflict has killed more than 507,000 people since then, the Observatory for Human Rights said in March. Of the total, 164,000 were civilians.
Assad regained control of most of Syria after key allies – Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group – came to his rescue. But all have recently been weakened and diverted by other crises, giving Sunni Muslim militants a window to fight back.
A senior Iranian official said Tehran, which has been focused on tensions with arch-foe Israel since the Gaza war began, would send missiles, drones and more advisers to Syria.
“Tehran has taken all necessary steps to increase the number of its military advisers in Syria and deploy forces,” the senior Iranian official said on condition of anonymity.
The head of HTS, Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, vowed in an interview with the New York Times published on Friday that the rebels could end Assad’s rule. “This operation broke the enemy,” he said of the rebels’ lightning offensive.
“Our goal is to liberate Syria from this oppressive regime,” he told the newspaper.
The White House said on Friday that it was closely monitoring developments in Syria.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a phone call that Syria’s government should enter dialogue with the opposition and initiate a political process, a Turkish foreign ministry source said.
In another alarming development for Assad, the head of the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish force said the Islamic State group, which imposed a reign of terror over swathes of Iraq and Syria before its defeat by a US-led coalition in 2017, had now taken control of some areas in eastern Syria.
Aron Lund, a fellow at think-tank Century Foundation, said Assad’s government was “fighting for their lives at this point”.
It was possible the government could hold Homs, “but given the speed at which things have moved so far, I wouldn’t count on it”, he said.
